Memed Abashidze (January 18, 1873 – 1937) was a Georgian

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

 politician, writer and public benefactor. An eminent leader of Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 Georgian community of Adjarians, he was a major proponent of pro-Georgian orientation in Adjara

Adjara

Adjara , officially the Autonomous Republic of Adjara , is an autonomous republic of Georgia.Adjara is located in the southwestern corner of Georgia, bordered by Turkey to the south and the eastern end of the Black Sea...

 and one of the architects of the region's autonomy within Georgia. He became a victim of Stalin’s Great Purge

Great Purge

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

.

Biography

Abashidze was born into the powerful Muslim Georgian noble house of Abashidze

Abashidze

Abashidze is a Georgian family and a former princely house. Appearing in the 15th century, they achieved prominence in the Kingdom of Imereti in western Georgia in the late 17th century and branched out in eastern Georgian kingdoms of Kakheti and Kartli as well as the then-Ottoman-held...

, rulers of Adjara for the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. After Adjara was absorbed into Imperial Russia in 1878, Georgian intellectuals launched a campaign aimed at reincorporation of local Muslim Georgian community into the Georgian society. Mehmed’s father, Prince Ibrahim Abashidze, sided with this movement

Society for the Spreading of Literacy Among Georgians

The Society for the Spreading of Literacy Among Georgians was a charity founded by a group of leading Georgian intellectuals in May 1879 in order to promote a cultural renaissance among the peasantry of Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire...

 and helped open a Georgian school in Batumi

Batumi

Batumi is a seaside city on the Black Sea coast and capital of Adjara, an autonomous republic in southwest Georgia. Sometimes considered Georgia's second capital, with a population of 121,806 , Batumi serves as an important port and a commercial center. It is situated in a subtropical zone, rich in...

 in 1883. Born in Turkish-dominated Batumi, Mehmed attended this school. At the same time, he received a traditional education at home. Fluent in several languages, he began translating Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

, Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

, and Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

 works into Georgian and authored the first Georgian textbook on the Arabic language and the first Turkish translation of the well-known medieval Georgian epic The Knight in the Panther's Skin

The Knight in the Panther's Skin

The Knight in the Panther's Skin is an epic poem, consisting of over 1600 shairi quatrains, was written in the 12th century by the Georgian epic-poet Shota Rustaveli, who was a Prince and Treasurer at the royal court of Queen Tamar of Georgia. The Knight in the Panther's Skin is often seen as...

by Shota Rustaveli

Shota Rustaveli

Shota Rustaveli was a Georgian poet of the 12th century, and one of the greatest contributors to Georgian literature. He is author of "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" , the Georgian national epic poem....

 (the manuscript of this translation was lost in the 1930s). Besides, Abashidze’s plays were staged in the recently opened Batumi Drama Theatre.

During the Russian Revolution of 1905

Russian Revolution of 1905

The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...

, he became involved in the political life of Georgia. His brother, Aslan-Beg Abashidze

Aslan-Beg Abashidze

Aslan-Beg Abashidze was a Muslim Georgian nobleman and general in the service of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. Like his brother Memed Abashidze, he was one of the principal champions of pro-Georgian orientation in the largely Muslim region of Adjara, heavily contested during and immediately...

, was a commander of one of the revolutionary detachments. From 1904 to 1908, he was a member of the Socialist Federalist Party of Georgia and advocated pro-Georgian orientation among the Adjarian Muslims. In 1908, the Russian persecutions forced him to flee to the Ottoman Empire where he was arrested. Back in Adjara in 1913, he was imprisoned by the Tsar

Tsar

Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

ist police and eventually exiled to Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

. Prohibited from returning to Batumi, he stayed in Tbilisi

Tbilisi

Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

 after his release and led the Committee of Georgian Muslims for the Batumi District. Russia’s February Revolution

February Revolution

The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...

 of 1917 enabled to him to return to his native Adjara, where his Committee quickly turned into opposition to resurgent pan-Tukist

Pan-Turkism

Pan-Turkism is a nationalist movement that emerged in 1880s among the Turkic intellectuals of the Russian Empire, with the aim of cultural and political unification of all Turkic peoples.-Name:...

 movement and attempted to bring Christian and Muslim Georgians together. In November 1917, he was elected to the National Council of Georgia. During the Turkish occupation of Batumi in 1918, he stayed in the region and was arrested for his criticism of the Turkish authorities. He escaped from the Trebizond prison later that year and welcomed the declaration of the independent Democratic Republic of Georgia

Democratic Republic of Georgia

The Democratic Republic of Georgia , 1918–1921, was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Georgia.The DRG was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917...

 in May 1918. When the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 took control of Batumi from the Ottomans in December 1918, Abashidze returned to the city and organized the Congress of the People of Adjara which campaigned against the British installed government headed by the Russian Cadet

Constitutional Democratic party

The Constitutional Democratic Party was a liberal political party in the Russian Empire. Party members were called Kadets, from the abbreviation K-D of the party name...

 Maslov. The movement forced the British military administration to organize local parliamentary elections on August 31 1919. Abashidze became chairman of the newly elected Mejlis (National Assembly) which was soon to become a scene of heated struggle between pro-Georgian and Turkophile factions. Abashidze renewed his campaign calling for the incorporation of Adjara into Georgia with an autonomous status and criticizing the Allies

Allies of World War I

The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...

’ attempts to turn Batumi into a free port

Free port

A free port or free zone , sometimes also called a bonded area is a port, port area or other area with relaxed jurisdiction with respect to the country of location...

. Upon the evacuation of the British, Georgian army entered Batumi on July 8 1920, but the question of Adjara’s autonomy remained still open. When Soviet Russia’s Red Army occupied Georgia

Red Army invasion of Georgia

The Red Army invasion of Georgia also known as the Soviet–Georgian War or the Soviet invasion of Georgia was a military campaign by the Soviet Russian Red Army against the Democratic Republic of Georgia aimed at overthrowing the Social-Democratic government and installing the Bolshevik regime...

 in February-March 1921, Abashizde resigned his position in the Mejlis and chose a policy of reconciliation with the newly established Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

 regime. He became a member of the Revolutionary Committee of the Batumi district and took part in drafting the first constitution of the Adjar ASSR

Adjar ASSR

The Adjar ASSR, Adzhar ASSR or Adjarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union within the Georgian SSR, established on 16 July 1921...

. Although the Soviet authorities were suspicious of Abashidze, he was still well treated and received a pension thanks probably to his erstwhile ties with Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 who worked in Batumi in the early 1900s. In 1935, he became the head of the Adjarian section of the Writers’ Union of Georgia. During the Great Purges, however, he was arrested on trumped-up charges of treason and executed later that year. His family members were also repressed. Abashidze was rehabilitated only in 1957.

His brother's grandson, Aslan Abashidze

Aslan Abashidze

Aslan Abashidze was the leader of the Ajarian Autonomous Republic in western Georgia from 1991 to May 5, 2004. He resigned under the pressure of the central Georgian government and mass opposition rallies during the 2004 Adjara crisis, and has since lived in Moscow, Russia...

, became an authoritarian ruler of Adjara

Adjara

Adjara , officially the Autonomous Republic of Adjara , is an autonomous republic of Georgia.Adjara is located in the southwestern corner of Georgia, bordered by Turkey to the south and the eastern end of the Black Sea...

 in the 1990s and was ousted in 2004 shortly after the Rose Revolution

Rose Revolution

The "Revolution of Roses" was a change of power in Georgia in November 2003, which took place after having widespread protests over the disputed parliamentary elections...

in Georgia.